May be somebody can help me with this one. I have a track in which I am using 7 or 8 different channels for articulations. So I am thinking of using the change MIDI channel on a note basis method. However, the one issue I have noticed is that player performance on the MIDI keyboard - including notes, mod wheel, pitch info, etc - is always on channel 1. Is there any way for the keyboard to respond to another channel without breaking the workflow? 

It appears the benefit of working with multiple MIDI tracks each assigned to their respective channel is the ease in which the MIDI keyboard switches over to and has focus on that particular channel when you simply click/highlight that particular track. But it isn't as "neat" and organized as working with the one track and changing channels per note instead. 

I find it much more flexible to keep different midi tracks for different midi channels.

Now, with drums, I have a single midi track set to channel 10, and (I use Battery 3) I have all of the audio output channel routing managed from within Battery 3, so that each cell goes to a different audio output channel.

This gives me complete control over each drum/cymbal/etc.

Could you please elaborate on why you have all of these different channels contained within the same midi track?  It just is not making too much sense to me at the moment (not your fault there), and if I could understand your reasoning better, perhaps I could better engage in discussion on this topic.

I am particularly confused about the "changing channels per note" comment you make above, and on the 'neat and organized' part, too.

Thanks, 

Bob Bone

Hey Robert,

You can work with one MIDI track and within that track, each note can be assigned to a different channel if you wish. These channels of course could contain different instruments or articulations on a synth. This creates a much more organized and tidy set up because there is only 1 track to deal with rather than having a track for each channel. 

I am creating a MIDI template for my EWQLSO library. I do like this feature in Sonar of being able to assign a different channel to whatever note. Now, I'm not new to MIDI, I've even created the multi-track method for switching art's back in the day, 12, 13 years ago. But this method of using one track and changing channels through the notes themselves, although great for the reasons I mentioned, has me stumped on the channel playability: that you can only play on channel 1. I have tried everything this morning, so I think that I must surrender to using the more classic multiple track per channel method and just use track folders to keep it as tidy as possible   (Incidentally, folders within folders would be an awesome feature!) 

In the meantime, I am hoping EW gets some new version of PLAY going that addresses custom keyswitch assignment for non-KS instruments. This would be just beautiful. 

With EWQLSO, you don't need to set up different for different articulations for the same instrument. If your 18 violins patch is on Midi Channel 1 then all of the aetics for that instrument will also be on Midi Channel 1, unless you explicitly change it in the Play Engine.

I have created separate drum maps - 1 for each instrument - in order to control which articulations are being played, and you can view both the Map and the normal Notes pane simultaneously with the PRV, one above the other.

The only time different Midi channels comes into play is when dealing with a different instrument

Bristol_Jonesey


With EWQLSO, you don't need to set up different for different articulations for the same instrument. If your 18 violins patch is on Midi Channel 1 then all of the aetics for that instrument will also be on Midi Channel 1, unless you explicitly change it in the Play Engine.

I have created separate drum maps - 1 for each instrument - in order to control which articulations are being played, and you can view both the Map and the normal Notes pane simultaneously with the PRV, one above the other.

The only time different Midi channels comes into play is when dealing with a different instrument

That's definitely true for the KS patch instruments, and that's really cool, less to worry about. But then again, I like to load DXF's and other patches without KS for other art's and complex layering, etc. That's when 1 instrument on different channels becomes problematic for me. 


Correct me if I misunderstood, are you saying that using the drum maps you are able to switch art's between different channels on the same track? That's one thing I don't have experience with, is drum maps. I never used them before. 

No, don't get your hopes up with that one Bob - I only access 1 Midi channel at a time when using a Drum Map - but I have many hidden from view only accessible via a screenset.

For instance, all of my Orchestral work is done in one huge, monstro template of - at last count - 136 tracks.

I have a different screenset for Strings, Brass, Woods & Percussion. Then, each screenset in the PRV contains the 2 Midi tracks for each instrument - the one for notes and the drum map for the artics. The 3rd track, Audio, is only visible in track & console view

I can see that using DXF's and doing complex layering is going to take a more complicated setup. The KS patches contain just barely enough to get by as it is with my 136 tracks (percussion of course doesn't have KS patches, the different percussion instruments are each allocated a single Midi channel.)

I'm currently missing out on loads of artics just to keep this thing manageable.

A possible workaround would be to have separate projects for different orchestra sections
Another one is to simply expand my current template to incorporate the X mod stuff. The only reason I stopped building this when I did was that I was unsure exactly how this was going to affect system resources, but even fully loaded as it is, I use about 15% of my 32Gb of RAM

Ohh Colin you smashed my hopes! lol


Yes I think that I really just have to surrender to the multiple tracks option. Track count is high as is, I can't wait to see how much higher it gets when I start delegating channels to actual separate tracks haha. 


By the way, 32G of RAM is indeed juicy. I am working with 16G total, but with what I have up and loaded - since I carefully unloaded any duplicate (compared to a better single patch loaded) yet more limited versions of any art in the master KS, truly helping to cut down on RAM footprint - I actually have about 7 to 8 G RAM left to work with in my template after all is loaded, which is not bad!